Film Festival Partner Close-Up:
International Horror Hotel Film Festival 2025, Middleburg Heights
Calling all fans of horror movies, fantasy films, sci-fi adventures and suspense thrillers! The 14th annual International Horror Hotel Film Festival will take place June 19-22, 2025, at the Crown Plaza Cleveland Airport Hotel in Middleburg Heights. Four days of screenings feature a line-up of independent films catering to audiences who appreciate chills and thrills.
Last year’s event drew more than 500 attendees. “The 2024 event received 240 film and script submissions and showed 150 films to our record audiences,” said Johnny K. Wu, co-owner and one of the festival’s organizers.
The Team Behind the Terror
The International Horror Hotel Film Festival was founded by Ray Szuch and Kristina Michelle more than a decade ago. Ray is a three-time Emmy-winning producer and stunt coordinator who was considering retirement. He turned to Johnny, who formed a six-person team to take over the event. Just as Ray had hoped, the festival continues to connect independent filmmakers and filmgoers attracted to these unique genres.
Johnny’s film experience includes producing and/or directing more than 30 films, several of which focus on the martial arts subgenre of action films. He is one of three co-founders of the Cleveland Asian Festival, which draws 50,000 people to Cleveland’s AsiaTown each year.
What to Expect
The International Horror Hotel Film Festival is truly experiential. Beyond four days of film, sidebars include lectures, two days of panel discussions with industry pros, vendors of horror souvenirs and memorabilia, special guests, networking karaoke parties and awards in more than 25 categories. A highlight is the FX makeup competition in two categories – horror and sci-fi/fantasy – in which competitors try to outdo the level of gore.
In 2025, the festival will feature the second annual Room 237 Film Competition where filmmakers compete to create a film in 30 days making use of a murder weapon assigned during a Zoom kick-off meeting.
If spine-tingling is your thing, check out the International Horror Hotel Film Festival. Filmmakers interested in submitting can visit here to get their submission started.
Photo: The 2024 winner of the FX makeup competition impressed the judges.
ABOUT NORTHEAST OHIO
Opportunities for fright all over town
In town for the International Horror Hotel Film Festival? Maximize your goosebumps with these historic and fright-related experiences:
- The Haunted House Restaurant in Cleveland Heights https://thehauntedhouserestaurant.com/
- Lake View Cemetery’s Haserot Angel https://www.lakeviewcemetery.com/
- Franklin Castle, Ohio’s Most Haunted Home https://allthatsinteresting.com/franklin-castle
- The Old Cleveland Arcade, Cleveland’s Crystal Palace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Arcade